Fickle Weather Brings Growers Mixed Year

All last month the peppers weren`t perfect, and the corn stalks uneven. Worse, leaf diseases struck pepper and tomato plants, and unseasonable heat wilted harvest yields of many crops to below normal levels.

November was simply too hot, and some of the young growing season`s sporadic rains were too heavy. From a grower`s viewpoint, the pre-December weather was absolutely adverse.

And the market, generally, wasn`t much better.

``This isn`t exactly a bumper year,`` said Valjean Hailey of DuBois Farms west of Boynton Beach.

In fact, it`s been a relatively strange year for Palm Beach County`s vegetable growers, whose fate is in the hands of fickle weather systems.

The chilly weather of December has begun to help, but farmers are still left to count the season`s mixed blessings as Christmas week approaches.

But Christmas brings back the memory of 1983, when a holiday freeze hammered the local winter vegetable industry. It was the first of two seasons racked by severe cold - freezes which statistically should occur only once every 100 years. The 1984-85 season was wrecked for many by a late January freeze.

These memories made farmers antsy about wishing for cool weather during November`s heat. A little cool is great; another freeze would devastate the crops.

``It`s a crazy thing,`` said J. Luis Rodriguez, the Boynton Beach tomato and eggplant grower. ``The cool weather is a blessing, but we worry about another freeze.``

The cool weather has done several things for the farmers. First, for pepper and tomato growers, the weather slows down the leaf disease problem that has hurt yields and driven up costs because additional treatments with fungicides are required.

Second, the cool weather slows plant growth and causes the plant to focus more energy on its fruit rather than its leaves. This is very important in producing larger, better-quality vegetables and beefing up per-acre yields.

``This is the kind of weather that tomatoes love,`` said Wayne Hawkins, executive director of the Orlando-based Florida Tomato Committee. ``In the warm weather, they just don`t size up. I guess they just make it too fast. The basic quality has been good, but we haven`t had their size or the yield.``

Uneven stands of sweet corn in some fields will reduce the harvest yields a bit, but the early fields are reported to be in good to very good condition, while ear size and quality are reported mostly good, according to the Florida Crop and Livestock Reporting Service.

The service`s weekly report began reflecting the December improvements last week. Some crops which rated only fair to good a week before began to show up in good or good to very good categories. Disease reports were down in fields planted early and were virtually nonexistent in fields planted more recently.

A year ago, many of Palm Beach County`s early vegetable harvest was growing so abundantly that prices were poor until the first wave of cooler weather struck in late December.

Crop quality was excellent, but prices at times were lower than production costs for some vegetables. After a brief period of improving income, the big freeze sent prices sky-high, but that was only lucky for the few whose crops survived the cold.

This year, the market has been mixed.

The green bean prices, for example, has been pretty bad. Some Dade County farmers dumped some of their harvest because the market was so weak, according to state agricultural reports.

On the other hand, Rodriguez said eggplant prices were good for three weeks in November, but they have since crashed. Tomato prices, on the other hand, were relatively low but have improved dramatically in the past 10 days.

The major factors in the improvement for tomato growers have been the slowed harvest here and hardships for competitors in Mexico and California.

``Mexico is late, and California got hit pretty hard,`` Rodriguez said. ``We`ve got all 50 states for our market. Naturally this is the year I decided to cut back on my tomato plantings.``

Rodriguez, who was elected president of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association in September, reduced his plantings to devote more attention to other obligations.

Hawkins said Mexico - a major competitor for Florida growers of tomatoes, peppers, squash and cucumbers - has planted increased acreage of all four crops. However, the early season plantings were virtually destroyed by rains produced by Pacific Ocean hurricanes.

Rains also helped bring late season California tomato crops to a premature end, leaving Florida growers the entire U.S. market for the remainder of the month. Hawkins said the state`s shipments are actually below last year`s more competitive situation, with demand for the limited supply driving up the price.

Barring additional heavy rains in Mexico, the supply of tomatoes should begin to expand rapidly during the first 10 days of January, Hawkins predicted.

In addition to the maturing Mexican crop, Dade County`s huge tomato crop should go into full harvest early next month.

Currently, the Immokalee and Palm Beach County crops are the nation`s primary source of tomatoes.